Terjék József: Kőrösi Csoma-dokumentumok az Akadémiai Könyvtár gyűjteményeiben. Budapest, 1976.

Preface

11 say that the contemporary international press paid a compassionate tribute to the great scholar at his death, he gives instead the headlines of newspapers in question and the exact details of the obituary. One is not to read this point by point, only to run it through, and the reader will sense and understand something impossible to voice so subtly. The writer had a harder task in publishing a detailed catalog of Csoma's Tibetan books. For the reader unfamiliar with the misteries of the Tibetan language it is certainly not easy to get his bearings in this labyrinth, I think, however, Térjék renders sufficient help to the interested not to lose his footing. This catalog proves interesting and exciting for the initiate, and no doubt some reader or other would get here a taste of the Tibetem language. The chapter on Tivadar Duka deserves particular attention. I believe Duka's role in getting Csoma recognized and fostering his memory had not received its due regard before so objectively and at the same time so warmly. The gratitude and appreciation of posterity can be felt in the lines written sometimes with moving tenderness. Also Malan's figure, as Térjék portrays him appears authentic and more life-like than ever before. Térjék accompanies Csoma along his career as Tibetist from the beginning to the end, stopping at each phase of importance, lingering awhile and analysing closely the work performed. As has been mentioned above, our author follows Csoma to the very end of his Tibetist career. This end, as Térjék emphatically points out, is by no means coincidental with Csoma's death. The scholar had finished his Tibetist activity much earlier, giving away all his Tibetan books thinking he would not need them any more. It would be false reasoning Csoma got bored with an activity gaining him success and international fame. He completed his Tibetan activity because he fulfilled his voluntary obligation and, so he felt, he could return to his primary plan: to explore the original home of the Hungarian people. Nol at a venture, however, but aimed with knowledge learned during his Tibetan studies does he leave for the country of the Yugars "on the western borders of China northeast from the provinces Lhasa and Kham". He may have brought